Earth and Sun Against My Bones
by Lady Storm
Summary: Shinta is digging graves. It is the start of everything.
1. Part One: Hopeless

_"Shinta is digging graves. It is the start of everything." Rated K+/T, no warnings. General/Angst/Hurt&Comfort, standard disclaimer applies. 1288 words, no beta. Part one._

**Earth and sun against my bones.**** [1/2]**

By Raph.

-

Digging.

Digging.

Digging.

The word itself started to blur in his head, repeated in a silly two-tone loop until he couldn't even pronounce it. He'd tried to sing it like a song at first, but it never brought him any cheer – and the sound of any false merrymaking was so horrible he'd stopped singing aloud. He couldn't hear much of a tune in his broken voice, anyway. Just like he couldn't feel much of the earth anymore. At first the crumbling chill was all he could focus on, how it sank into the very lines and folds of his skin, crawling under what was left of his fingernails and making his wrists itch. How the rocks prodded into his knees and shins and cut him sweetly, slowly. Now his senses were numb to it, only feeling the occasional brush on his forearms where no dirt had lingered before. He was going down, after all. Soon he'd be up to his elbows again. Soon he'd be up to his neck again. They had to be up above his head at least, or else they'd protrude. He had always been small.

Eye-deep in a grave that was not his. Both hands, fingers clawed, short stubs called nails first. Right, left, right, left, catch the earth before it sank down. When the hole was large enough, gather it in both hands and throw it over the side of the last hole. Smell the almost putrid sweet scent rise as he literally unearthed more and more. Repeat. Insects that had fascinated him as a child – when had he stopped being a child? Was he still a child? He didn't know. No one was left to tell him. – bloomed from the damp earth like newborns, crawling up his arms, dispassionately ignored. Many legs ghosting over his shoulders, burrowing into his hair. Or was that just the breeze? It's okay. Just keep digging.

The sun was there. It had risen slowly, cruelly. He did not hate it for daring to show its splendid face on his field as if to reassure him, or deny its absence. He hated it because it brought the smell back. The warm glow on chilled bodies was so surreal, cooking the congealing blood in open throats, that he'd stumbled into the overgrowth where the forest began and vomited. It was the smell of once warm blood mixed with rotting earth that shook him.

The sight of corpses was okay. He was used to those.

It was with the taste of sickness and death in his mouth that he worked cold with his hands. But even then the horror was slowly dispelled as he worked more and more earth, quietly slipping away. It made sense to him, after all. All life begins to be destroyed the moment it is created. Had someone told him this? No. He had sadly realized it, watching trees bloom and wither as he marched past. When you die you are returned to nothing once again. A living breathing life was nothing more in death than cold flesh, ash, urine, and filth. All the same. All as one.

Digging.

Not that life wasn't precious. He loved it. He loved the colours and sounds it evoked, dancing and smiling at him. He especially loved the warmth of it's embrace when she had sung him to sleep, his kin laughing low in the background… But once it was gone all were equal. He had no merit in hate. He did not hate those who had taken so much. He had, in the mere moments when the sneered at him and prepared to strike. Not anymore.

The sun was starting to set now. He'd worked all day, for two days now, and more than likely would need another to finish. He hadn't eaten. He wasn't hungry, and he always tasted dirt and bile in his mouth anyway. He had to work. He'd known full days of scorching work in fields before, but never like this, oh never like this. The sun just mocked him now. _Still there?_ It asked. _Oh my sweet child. I will watch you now, _it said as it disappeared, leaving him alone.

There was a slight evening breeze, cool and loving, mercifully caressing his face. Keep working. Keep digging.

He didn't even care for the crows circling, diving in. He'd been glad at first. They were company. Until they'd pecked at the bodies – loudly and angrily cawed over the torn out eyeball, snapping the thin layer of white between wicked beaks. He'd chased them away, waving his hands and shouting, but they'd swooped in and clawed at his face, talons racking his cheeks and hair. One managed a strike to the eye, blinding him and making him reel away into the forest. Once he'd managed to open it again, finding it reassuringly free of blood, he went back and this time did not bother them. All the more reason to keep digging. At least he wasn't alone. He had promised companions until he was done.

It was the solitary presence of his own filthy person that scared him more than the open wounds. He refused thinking anything past _All__ is ashes once again_ and kept digging for their last honour.

It was easier once he was at least wrist deep. The earth above that was tough and rocky, dried and poisoned. He tried choosing the smoothest place at first, but they were deceptive, and sharper rocks awaited his broken skin beneath the calm brown and between the desperate roots. Besides, as the first was finally done and the next was started, he realized he would need a lot of room. He started digging in rows.

Six rows now. Loose and scattered mounds, unmarked. He had found some proper-sized wood, he could rope them together to make grave markers. He hoped he'd have enough for all of them.

Without realizing it he had reached the proper depth. Now to widen it. This part was both easier and harder – he was cooler down here but earth kept slipping back down, showering him and blinding him. He brushed the dirt from his face and shook his head and kept digging.

It was done now. With difficult, numb arms he crawled out and padded over crushed grass and broken weapons to the closest body. He didn't even stop to examine the ghastly face – didn't see the long beard, yellow cheeks, one eyelid at half-mast, missing an ear and a good chunk of skull – as he bent and grabbed the slick smooth hands. Limp now, the death's stiffness had passed. He heaved and started to drag the corpse into the new grave, mouth gaping, eagerly awaiting.

No, he mustn't think that way. Rest, calm. They would be at peace there. A corpse was no longer a bloody bandit. Just a corpse, like the kind girls who had protected him. If the girls deserved a grave, so did the bandit. He was treating red earth with respect, as he had been taught to, as he had always known to.

With a final heave and push, the body tumbled face down into cool crevice of earth. He slipped in and turned the body face-up with difficulty, rearranging the limbs. He closed the open eye. His finger was so crusted with earth and dried sweat that he couldn't have felt anything even if his fingers weren't numb, so he didn't mind. He clambered back up, and started filling the hole again.

The sun was setting, and he started anew. Digging.

Digging until he had no more light save for the moon, and then clouds smothered it. Only when he could no longer see his filthy hands before him and silence pounded in his ears did he lay to rest under the shelter of the trees, because then he would sleep to ignore the clash of metal in his ears.

The crows had gone now. He was truly alone.


	2. Part Two: Hope

_1158 words, no beta. Part two._

**Earth and sun against my bones.**** [2/2] **

When he woke he lay still for a mere moment before getting up stiffly. He didn't feel comfortable lying down, because the feel of earth started to haunt him. Twigs and stones fell from his frame unnoticed.

He softly padded barefoot through the wreckage of humanity he had called his farce of a home for days now. Mounds of dignified earth on one side, corpses unattended on another. Birds circling in the dawn, clever in their disguise. He knew they were no innocents, but he could not begrudge their nature. He could not begrudge anything, try as he might.

Something in him had died, but he did not notice. He circled the field, fell to his knees, and started digging.

It was a slap to the face when he wearily trudged over to the sea of dead and saw but one corpse remaining. Because – because – he didn't know _why_ he stood and stared. He was afraid of looking too hard at any of them, unless they were the girls. But he had buried them first. He stared now.

A youth, taller than him, older – but not by much. Long hair matted in a clumsy topknot, shaken loose in death. Mouth open, a crusty once-red brown. Ashen lips. Cheeks yellow even in the calm of the sun. He did not know of attractiveness, because the girls and his true family had been beautiful to him in their kindness. He could not judge it in this dead boy, but he supposed he would have qualified as beautiful to someone, once.

Why?

The question appeared of it's own volition, startling him.

Why would a boy – a child, just like him! – surrender, or agree to dealing death? He did not hate, but dislike of the concept of bandits greatly burdened him. They took precious life with evil words and spitting mouths. Why? Why would a boy do it too?

He didn't want to feel sorry for him. He didn't want to imagine scenarios that led the boy here against his will. When one died they were forgiven of their earthly deeds, but the sorrow and foul taste of anger in his mouth stayed with _him_. They were but lumps in the earth now, he had no reason to hate them anymore. He kept telling himself this.

So why was he so angry all of a sudden? He had been dead to emotion just an hour ago.

He dismissed the idea of leaving the corpse of the boy to the shrieking crows the second it hit him. No, no, the boy was already dead, no need to disrespect him further. He gripped his sickly armored arms and dragged him to the last grave. Kicked him in sharply, then softly rearranged him with dignity to make amends. He climbed back up, slowly filling it up again, and made to start on the next grave.

Then realized he was done.

The sun was in the middle of the sky. Time meant nothing to him. It had felt like digging would consume all of his days. He had not stopped to wonder at his own fate after this, only digging – what was to become of him?

_"Live for me." _

Ah - he remembered the gravemarkers. Something to do, something to work, something to keep from being still and weeping.

He started gathering wood.

He was afraid to count the graves, so he worked one at a time, two shafts each. When he was done he went to get more. He was tired but he didn't really feel it – the exhaustion was more like some far-away echo of wind chimes. There, but faint, dull, giving up. He was so alone he didn't hear the whistling of leaves and chirping of other life anymore. Time passed unacknowledged like usual. He only realized his dimming vision when he started having trouble seeing the strips of cloth and straw rope that he fixed the wood together with. He found he was bathed in oranges and blues, the forest the deepest green and the field a deceptive tranquil grey. There were colours in death like there were colours in life. He found it strange and perhaps wrong, but _calming_.

He didn't notice the footsteps until the large shadow enveloped his three favourite graves. The voice spoke above him.

"Hating them for what they did to your family is understandable but foolish. Yet this…"

It was him. The man who had swept in like a shadow and saved him, but was too late. He had already died with the girls he called his sisters when the man had stopped the curving blade. He was only a shell of a boy now.

"They were not my family." He said softly, awed at his own steady voice echoing a courage he didn't have and sorrow he knew too well. "They were slave traders."

The man said nothing for a while, gazing with him at the crossed wood against the sinking sun. Then, "And you buried them all the same."

He dropped his eyes sadly. Stones, he thought. He'd need stones for the graves too, and maybe twigs to imitate incense. "Ashes to ashes," he replied.

More silence. The sun sank, and he wondered what he would do now that his purpose had halted. There was a pop, and the man poured sake over the wooden crosses. He somehow knew it was meant in respect. He was grateful, so numb but grateful.

"Thank you."

A large hand dropped on his shoulder, and the weight felt like it was lifting him. The last touch he had felt had been inanimate. This one was warm and willing. It was all he could do not to sink the ground. "What is your name," the great voice rumbled.

He told him.

No snort, no sympathy. Only: "Not a name for one who holds death so close. Not a name for a swordsman. Starting this moment until infinity you are Kenshin."

_Kenshin._ For the first time he turned and looked up at the man's face, eyes undaunted even in the glaring sunset. Alive, therefore beautiful.

The hand left him, diving into the folds of his cloak. It reemerged with something heart-wrenchingly familiar.

"This is yours?"

He nodded.

"Then keep it, if only to remind yourself of what you lost. You are no longer a child. Under my guidance you shall become a man."

He took the spinning top carefully, cradling it with awe. He raised his head to thank the man again, but he had already turned and was striding out of the haunting field, not looking back.

With a last bow and whispered breath, Kenshin turned and ran after him. Neither broke stride as they strode side by side.

Her last words were "Live for me."

With this new strength open to him and this strange ally of force, walking against the blood red dusk, he would live.

Already the breath of life was starting to refill his soul.

**The end is the beginning.**


End file.
